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Tag: Ban Ki-moon

  • Rwanda genocide: UN ashamed, says Ban Ki-moon

    The UN is still ashamed over its failure to prevent the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, UN chief Ban Ki-moon has said.

    He was addressing thousands of people in the capital, Kigali, as Rwanda began a week of official mourning to mark the 20th anniversary of the genocide.

    Many people were overcome by emotion during the ceremony, with some suffering fits.

    At least 800,000 people – mostly ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus – died at the hands of Hutu extremists.

    The killings ended ended in July 1994 when the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Tutsi-led rebel movement, marched into Kigali and seized control of the country.

    Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and Mr Ban lit a torch which will burn for 100 days – the length of time the genocide lasted.

    A diplomatic row has prompted Rwanda to bar France’s ambassador, Michel Flesch, from attending the event, AFP news agency reports.

    The week of mourning began with a wreath-laying ceremony at the national genocide memorial, followed by the lighting of a flame at the Amahoro Stadium in Kigali, where UN peacekeepers protected thousands of people during the genocide.

    The torch has been carried across the country for the past three months, visiting 30 districts and passing from village to village.

    Thousands of people packed the stadium, having queued for hours through the fog, reports the BBC’s Charlotte Attwood from the scene.

    Many of them reacted with uncontrollable emotion to the stories, speeches and performances recalling the genocide, our correspondent says.

    Some of them had to be led out of the stadium while others had fits, she adds.

    Traditional mourning songs were broadcast over the sound systems.

    There was also a dramatisation of Rwanda’s recent history, which our correspondent says was a clear depiction of the government’s interpretation of events.

    In the play, a jeep carrying “colonialists” arrives, who swap their straw hats for UN blue helmets. They then desert the people, who are saved by the governing RPF.

    UN personnel in Rwanda during the genocide showed “remarkable bravery”, Mr Ban told the crowd, according to AP.

    “But we could have done much more. We should have done much more,” he said.

    “In Rwanda, troops were withdrawn when they were most needed,” he added.

  • Sierra Leone: From ashes of war to seed of peace

    Sierra Leone: From ashes of war to seed of peace

    What was once the biggest United Nations peacekeeping operation in the world winds down this month, and the most extraordinary part of this historic development is that international troops are not the only ones departing the country – nationals from the once war-ravaged nation are donning blue helmets as they deploy to serve with the UN in other troubled parts of the world.

    Sierra Leone used to be synonymous with brutality. The savage, decade-long war there was marked by appalling atrocities against civilians.

    Shocked into action, the world responded by backing a series of United Nations peacekeeping and peace operations. In the process, the international community paved the way for breakthroughs that will resonate far beyond Sierra Leone for years to come.

    We must give full credit where it is due: the peace I witnessed at the closing ceremony in Freetown this month is first and foremost an accomplishment of the Sierra Leonean people, who showed tremendous resolve to heal and rebuild. The UN is proud to have supported them – and we thank them for proving our value.

    Sierra Leone saw many UN “firsts”, hosting the UN’s first multi-dimensional peacekeeping operation with political, security, humanitarian and national recovery mandates. The UN Peacebuilding Commission made it’s first-ever visit to Sierra Leone. Our final mission there was led by the first senior UN official heading a unified political and development presence.

    The United Nations was proud to help set up the Special Court for Sierra Leone – making it the first country in Africa to establish, with UN participation, a tribunal on its own territory to address the most serious international crimes.

    When the Special Court closed last year, it was the first of the UN and UN-backed tribunals to successfully complete its mandate. The Special Court’s sentencing of former Liberian President Charles Taylor was the first conviction of a former Head of State since Nuremberg – sending a stern warning that even top leaders must pay for their crimes. Other trials saw first-ever convictions for attacks against UN peacekeepers, forced marriage as a crime against humanity, and the use of child soldiers.

    These breakthrough accomplishments added to a solid record of achievements. UN blue helmets disarmed more than 75,000 ex-fighters, including hundreds of child soldiers, and destroyed more than 42,000 weapons and 1.2 million rounds of ammunition. The UN assisted more than half a million Sierra Leonean refugees and internally displaced persons to return home and supported training for thousands of local police. The UN helped the Government to combat illicit diamond mining that fuelled the conflict, and to establish control over the affected areas. With the UN’s help, Sierra Leone’s citizens voted in successive free and fair elections for the first time in their history.

    The UN Integrated Peace building Office helped Sierra Leone to consolidate progress, addressing tensions that could have caused a relapse into conflict while strengthening institutions and promoting human rights. It helped the Government to bolster the political process, emphasizing dialogue and tolerance, and further strengthened the national police, even supporting the establishment of the first Transnational Organized Crime Unit in West Africa.

    Our final mission is departing Sierra Leone but a United Nations country team will remain until long-term development takes root, supporting good governance, quality education, health services and other essential conditions for progress.

    Other countries now mired in fighting, divided by hatred and wounded by atrocities, can draw hope from Sierra Leone. Its resilient people have given peacekeeping their greatest possible vote of confidence by sending troops to serve where the UN flag flies today. They understand that national goodwill backed by international support can enable even the most devastated areas to enjoy lasting peace.

     

    Ban Ki-moon is the Secretary-General of the United Nations

     

  • UN chief condemns Yobe killings

    UN chief condemns Yobe killings

    United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, has strongly condemned the brutal killing of students at the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, in Yobe.

    The condemnation is contained in a statement issued on Wednesday in New York.

    It expressed sincere condolences to the bereaved families and hoped that the perpetrators would be “swiftly brought to justice.”

    “The secretary-general is deeply concerned about the increasing frequency and brutality of attacks against educational institutions in the north of the country.

    “He reiterates that no objective can justify such violence,” the statement said.

    On Tuesday, President Goodluck Jonathan condemned the killings, calling them “heinous, brutal and mindless.”

    The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Yobe is one of three north eastern states along with Borno and Adamawa put under emergency rule last May by President Jonathan as the military continues to combat the insurgency in the area.

     

  • UN condemms anti-homosexuality law in Uganda

    UN condemms anti-homosexuality law in Uganda

    UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Navi Pillay, have kicked against the anti-homosexuality bill, signed into law in Uganda on Monday.

    A UN statement issued on Tuesday in New York stated that the law criminalises and imposes life imprisonment on same-sex marriage, homosexuality and aggravated homosexuality.

    Ban said the law violates basic human rights and endangers Lesbians, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people in the country.

    He said he was seriously concerned about the negative impact of the new law and shares the UN High Commissioner’s view which states that the law violates human rights.

    The UN scribe added that the law would institutionalise discrimination, restrict the vital work of human rights activists and could trigger violence.

    He insisted that it would also hamper potentially life-saving efforts to stop the spread of HIV.

    The UN chief appealed for complete and universal decriminalisation of homosexuality, which is now a criminal offence in some 76 countries.

    Ban stressed that human rights must always trump cultural attitudes and societal strictures.

    On her part, Pillay said disapproval of homosexuality by some could never justify violating the fundamental human rights of others.

    She said the law institutionalised discrimination and was likely to encourage harassment and violence against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation.

    She added that it was formulated so broadly that it might lead to abuse of power and accusations against anyone, not just LGBT people.

    She said Uganda was obliged, both by its own constitution and by international law, to respect the rights of all individuals and to protect them from discrimination and violence.

    Pillay said the law violates a host of fundamental human rights, including the right to freedom from discrimination, to privacy, freedom of association, peaceful assembly, opinion and expression and equality before the law.

    The high commissioner expressed concern that the law might also threaten the critically important work of human rights defenders in the country and urged the Ugandan government to take immediate steps to ensure that LGBT people were not prosecuted for their advocacy. (PANA/NAN)

  • What I saw at Auschwitz concentration camp – Ban Ki-moon

    What I saw at Auschwitz concentration camp – Ban Ki-moon

    As the world commemorates the International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust tomorrow, the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon captures his experience at a recent visit to the Auschwitz concentration camp and harped on the need for nations across the globe to embrace equality for all.

    This year’s observance of the International Remembrance Day on January 27th — the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp — falls at a time when there are reminders all around us of the dangers of forgetting.

    This year marks two decades since the genocide in Rwanda.  Conflicts in Syria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic have taken on dangerous communal dimensions.  Bigotry still courses through our societies and our politics.  The world can and must do more to eliminate the poison that led to the camps.

    I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau last November.  A chill wind was blowing that day; the ground was rocky underfoot.  But I had an overcoat and sturdy shoes; my thoughts went to those who had had neither: the Jews and other prisoners who once populated the camp.  I thought of those captives standing naked for hours in icy weather, torn from their families and shorn of their hair as they were readied for the gas chambers.  I thought of those who were kept alive only to be worked to death.  Above all, I reflected on how unfathomable the Holocaust remains even today.  The cruelty was so profound; the scale so large; the Nazi worldview so warped and extreme; the killing so organized and calculated nature.

    The barracks at Birkenau seemed to stretch to the horizon in every direction – a vast factory of death.  The “Book of Names” identifying millions of Jewish victims filled a room yet contained just a fraction of the toll, which also encompassed Poles, Roma, Sinti, Soviet prisoners of war, dissidents, homosexuals, people with disabilities and others.  I was especially moved by a video showing European Jewish life in the 1930s – scenes of family meals and visits to the beach, musical and theatre performances, weddings and other rituals, all savagely extinguished through systematic murder unique in human history.

    Marian Turski, a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz and is today the Vice-President of the International Auschwitz Committee, walked me through the infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” gate — this time in freedom.  Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, a survivor of Buchenwald and now the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, stood with me on the ramp where the transport trains unloaded their human cargo, and recounted the traumatic moment when the swift flick of an SS commander’s index finger meant the difference between life and death.  I grieve for those who died in the camps, and I am awed by those who lived — who bear sorrowful memories yet have shown the strength of the human spirit.

    I was also accompanied by students from the International Youth Meeting Centre in Oswiecim, who work to build bridges among people and nations.  L’dor v’dor, Marian Turski said to me – Hebrew for “from generation to generation”, the passing on of wisdom.  It is for this reason that Auschwitz-Birkenau is on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.  We cannot build the future without remembering the past; what happened once can recur.

    Combatting hatred is among the cardinal missions of The United Nations.  Our human rights mechanisms work to protect people.  Our special courts and tribunals strive to combat impunity, deliver justice and deter violations.  UN special advisers on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect scan the world for the precursors of atrocity crimes.  The Alliance of Civilizations initiative seeks to counter manifestations of hatred, from anti-Semitism and Islamophobia to ultra-nationalism and bias against minorities.  Our new “Rights Up Front” effort seeks to strengthen early action to prevent grave abuses of human rights.

    For almost a decade, the “United Nations and the Holocaust Outreach Programme” has been working with teachers and students on all continents to promote tolerance and universal values. The programme’s newest educational package, produced in partnership with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, will help to introduce Holocaust studies into classrooms in countries ranging from Brazil and Nigeria to Russia and Japan.  At this year’s remembrance ceremony at UN Headquarters, the featured speaker will be Steven Spielberg, whose Shoah Institute for Visual History and Education was a landmark in preserving survivor testimony.

    A few steps from the crematorium at Auschwitz, I took a moment to myself for reflection.  I touched a barbed wire fence — no longer electrified but still sharp and intimidating.  I felt overwhelmed by the enormity of what had happened within, and humbled by the courage and sacrifice of the soldiers and leaders of many nations who defeated the Nazi menace.  My hope is that our generation, and those to come, will summon that same sense of collective purpose to prevent such horror from happening again anywhere, to anyone or any group, and build a world of equality for all.

     

  • UN invites Iran to Syria peace talks

    United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon has invited Iran to take part in preliminary Syrian peace talks this week in Switzerland, an offer Tehran has accepted.

    Mr. Ban said he had received assurances that Iran would play a positive role in securing a transitional government.

    But Syria’s main opposition group said it would withdraw from the talks unless Mr. Ban retracted the offer to Iran.

    And the United States said the offer must be conditional on Iran’s support for the 2012 deal on Syria’s transition.

    The Syria peace conference has been more than a year in the making and now it is in disarray before it’s even started, the BBC reports.

    The UN move appeared to take American officials by surprise, the report says.

    Ban Ki-moon said Iran “needs to be part of the solution to the Syria crisis.”

    Preliminary talks are due to open in Montreux on Wednesday and then continue in Geneva two days later.

    Syria’s government earlier agreed to attend the meeting.

    The three-year conflict in Syria has claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people.

    An estimated two million people have fled the country and some 6.5 million have been internally displaced.

     

  • Thousands gather in Johannesburg for Mandela

    Thousands gather in Johannesburg for Mandela

    Thousands of people are gathering at a stadium in Johannesburg for a memorial service for Nelson Mandela.

    United States President; Barack Obama, Cuban President; Raul Castro and United Nations Secretary General; Ban Ki-moon will address the service, as will four of Mr. Mandela’s grandchildren.

    The service at the 95,000-capacity FNB stadium is scheduled to start soon but people are still trying to enter.

    The former South African president died aged 95 last Thursday.

    The country is observing a series of commemorations leading up to the funeral on Sunday.

    The memorial service is one of the biggest gatherings of international dignitaries in recent years.

    BBC reports that many people stood in the rain waiting for several hours to get into the stadium.

    The report says the crowds are in high spirits – singing and dancing, stomping their feet – and the stadium is beginning to have the feel of a political rally.

    One of those attending, Shahida Rowe from Johannesburg, told the BBC: “The core of Mandela’s life was humanity. That is why I am here today and the world is celebrating.

    “Thanks to him, I was recognised as a human being.”

     

  • Human rights day: Working for our rights

    Human rights day: Working for our rights

    As the world marks this year’s Human Rights Day on December 10, the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon is urging everyone to intensify efforts to fulfil ‘our collective responsibility to promote and protect the right and dignity of all people everywhere’.

    For the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, it will commemorate its 20 years of existence with the theme, “Working for your rights”. It is a good opportunity to draw attention to those of our rights that we often overlook in Nigeria and hope thereby to jolt us to consciousness about them.

    The fact that these rights are routinely abused does not stop them from remaining human rights. It only means we have to take steps to assert them. In other words, we must work for them.

    Many Nigerians, including government officials and their apologists tend to see human rights issues as esoteric or alien concept that human rights ‘activists’ make too much noise about. They often remind us that, ‘this is Nigeria’. By that, they apparently mean, we need to see the internationally-recognised human rights ‘within our own context’, a euphemism for saying we are not ‘ripe’ for such standards or we should make do with sub-standards.

    Such argument is arrant nonsense! If we see ourselves as part of the world community and we love to appropriate all the trappings of modernity, including state-of-the-art personal gadgets, toys, cars and yes, private jets, what is so difficult with accepting human rights and promoting and protecting them?

    The Human Rights Day comes a day after the International Anti-Corruption Day. It is therefore important to remind us of how corruption, especially by government officials breach our rights to human dignity. To the extent that money stolen from our collective purse by public officials robs us of good roads, quality education, potable water, access to good health facilities and even the right to freely choose our governments means that our human rights are trampled upon.

    Apart from the various human rights instruments Nigeria has signed up to and is bound by, the Nigerian Constitution remains the most important source of human rights we must work for. I intend to draw attention to some of these here. Sections 33, 34 and 35 of the Constitution recognise the rights to life, dignity of the human person and personal liberty respectively. Those words seem very clear to understand.

    Many see the breach of the right to life mainly from the context of deaths occurring from direct acts of violence such as those perpetrated by armed insurgents and religious anarchists on the one hand and security forces on the other hand. But we must remind ourselves of other under-reported or ‘uncelebrated’ breaches to the right to life which the state must be made to account for.

    These include the hundreds and thousands that get killed in road accidents caused by a combination of bad or collapsed roads, poor enforcement of road safety regulations, failure to prosecute perpetrators and the general lack of concern for safety rules by the citizenry.

    How about the deaths resulting from the suicidal speeds and reckless use of public highways by government officials and their convoys? The abuse of the right to life is also seen in the many reports of lives lost on our waterways because the boats carried more human and material weights than required and there were no regulatory authorities to enforce or the officials compromised safety for dirty lucre. Same is applicable to air disasters.

    Working for our human rights means that we must demand diligent prosecution of the drivers and operators of vehicles that cause the accidents and killings as well as sanction of enforcement officials for dereliction of duty for every avoidable accident, whether or not occasioning death. And society must learn to sheath its sentiments when such prosecutions commence because people will always ask why a particular person is being tried when others in the past or in other areas of our national rot were not so prosecuted. Truly, such defence is jejune, silly and takes us nowhere.

    Another area the rights to life and of human dignity and are abused is in the failure of the health institutions. Too many deaths have occurred in Nigeria due to poor handling of medical cases, be they emergency, life-threatening or routine. This is often caused by outright corruption which means that even the essential drugs and facilities are not found in health facilities. In the cause of my work, I have come across health facilities in our rural communities that cannot effectively treat our commonest of ailments like malaria while childbirth remains one of the most live-threatening adventures in the country. It is time to hold the state to account for the failure to provide the basic facilities that guarantees healthcare. It would include prosecution for corruption in the sector and for dereliction of duty as well.

    Similar to the above is the collapse of our education sector. Public schools, especially at the primary and secondary levels, are in total shambles, not only in the rural communities but everywhere. In their current conditions, our public schools abuse the right of children to life and human dignity and also prepare the children not to be able to stand up and demand such rights in the future, due to ignorance. If children in schools are not guaranteed safe environment, qualified teachers, adequate number of teachers, requisite books and teaching materials as well as proper furniture, they are simply prepared for a bleak future where they cannot cope with their peers within and outside the country.

    It raises a very heavy burden in the mind as to the future of our country. I say this because I have seen what passes for public schools in different parts of the country. And it tells of one thing – the Nigerian state, as represented by our governments at all levels don’t really care about education. Most of the present government officials today went to public schools anyway and if the schools were of these present standards, we would not have had the requisite personnel to run our affairs as a country today.

    We must continue to demand that government puts in more money into critical sectors like health and education.

    But much more than that, we demand that those budgets should go to the real items that would turn around the sector. What we need are facilities, equipment, qualified, efficient and committed personnel to deliver quality services. We demand a departure from the usual budget headings with huge allocations for ‘welfare package’; ‘refreshments & meals’; ‘publicity & advertisements’; ‘sporting activities’; ‘anniversaries/celebrations’; ‘honorarium & sitting allowance’ and ‘international trainings’.

  • Ban Ki-moon expresses profound sadness

    Ban Ki-moon expresses profound sadness

    Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed his profound sadness at the passing of Nelson Mandela, extolling the life of the late human rights lawyer, prisoner of conscience, international peacemaker and first democratically-elected President of post-apartheid South Africa as an inspiration for all.

    ‘Madiba,’ as Mr. Mandela was affectionately known, passed on this afternoon at his home in Johannesburg. He was 95.

    “Nelson Mandela was a giant for justice and a down-to-earth human inspiration,” Mr. Ban said at UN Headquarters in New York.

    “On behalf of the United Nations, I extend my deepest condolences to the people of South Africa and especially to Nelson Mandela’s family, and indeed our global family.”

    Mr. Ban noted that many people worldwide were greatly influenced by Mr. Mandela’s selfless struggle for human dignity, equality and freedom. “He touched our lives in deeply personal ways. At the same time, no one did more in our time to advance the values and aspirations of the United Nations.”

    “Nelson Mandela showed what is possible for our world and within each one of us – if we believe, dream and work together for justice and humanity,” said the Secretary-General.

    “His moral force was decisive in dismantling the system of apartheid,” said Mr. Ki-moon “Remarkably, he emerged from 27 years of detention without rancour, determined to build a new South Africa based on dialogue and reconciliation.”

    Mr. Mandela devoted his life to the service of his people and humanity, and he did so at great personal sacrifice, said the Secretary-General, who said he was moved by the late leader’s “selflessness and deep sense of shared purpose” when the two men met in 2009.

    “Let us continue each day to be inspired by his lifelong example and his call to never cease working for a better and more just world.”

    Recalling his memories of meeting Mr. Mandela, the Secretary-General said he had been deeply touched and inspired. “When I praised him for his lifelong contribution to end apartheid he said ‘It is not only me, but hundreds and hundreds of known and unknown people that contributed.’ That has stuck with me ever since.”

  • UN calls for action against modern-day slavery

    UN calls for action against modern-day slavery

    The United Nations (UN) yesterday marked the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery with a call for concerted action to eradicate modern forms of slavery.

    “It is vital that we give special consideration to ending modern-day slavery and servitude which affects the poorest, most socially excluded groups. These groups include migrants, women, discriminated ethnic groups, minorities and indigenous peoples,” UN scribe, Ban Ki-moon said in his message for the Day, observed annually on December 2.

    The day marks the adoption by the General Assembly, the UN Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others in 1949.

    The focus of the day is on eradicating contemporary forms of slavery, such as trafficking in persons and sexual exploitation.

    It also draws attention to the worst forms of child labour, forced marriage and the forced recruitment of children for use in armed conflict.

    According to the UN International Labour Organisation (ILO), 21 million women, men and children are trapped in slavery all over the world.

    Ban said last year, member countries made some progress in the efforts to combat slavery through stronger legislation and greater coordination.

    “Also, more and more businesses are working to ensure their activities do not cause or contribute to contemporary forms of slavery in the workplace and their supply chains.

    “I strongly support these initiatives, and urge all Member States to ratify the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, develop robust and effective domestic legislation and boost enforcement on the ground. The partnership of the private sector in implementing these efforts is critical,” said the Secretary General.

    He also called for continued support for the UN Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery.

    Ban said it had helped to restore human rights and dignity to tens of thousands of children, women and men for over 20 years.

    Also, the UN General Assembly President, John Ashe, said in his message that the day serve as a reminder that modern slavery was a violation of a person’s basic human rights.

    “The majority of those who suffer are the most vulnerable and marginalised in society. Each year, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children are kidnapped and sold into bondage across international borders. Trafficking in persons is an issue of great global concern and affects almost all countries.

    “This inhumane activity continues to flourish owing to vast economic disparities between nations, increasing flows of labour and commodities across international borders and transnational organised criminal networks,’’ Ashe said.

    Ashe called on member states to eradicate all forms of slavery and boost initiatives that promote social inclusion and end all forms of discrimination.

    “We must promote and protect the rights of those most vulnerable within our societies and help to restore the dignity of victims of slavery,” he said.